Try these two March "episodic learning" opportunities

Spring has almost sprung, which means homeschooling students in North America are beginning to return outdoors. That gives our students more opportunities to benefit from episodic learning.

At Autism Oasis, we're big supporters of episodic learning, which is the idea that students learn and retain more from special events that happen in real life. Last month, many of us created learning opportunities as we watched The Olympics, one of my all-time favorite episodic learning activities.

This month, we have two excellent opportunities for episodic learning: one outside and one indoors!

The first activity is a memorable outdoor science event. On Tuesday, March 3, a lunar eclipse will be visible across North America, Australia and Asia, with totality occurring from the West Coast of North America to the East Coast of Australia, and almost all of the Pacific Ocean. Peak viewing will begin at 3 a.m. on the West Coast of the U.S., and at 10 p.m. on the East Coast of Australia.

Did that say THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING? Who is awake at that hour?

OUR FAMILIES ARE! 

Here are some resources you can use to give your student a memorable, episodic learning lesson about a total lunar eclipse.

Download this S2C lesson about the lunar eclipse

Bookmark this excellent guide to viewing the eclipse on Space.com

And this excellent article with lots of photos on the JPL-NASA website.

Here's a 60-section time lapse video of a total lunar eclipse (hold down your cursor to make it a 30 second video haha)

If you recognize the band shown above, chances are you've already made plans to celebrate our next episodic learning event in March: St. Patrick's Day! My student loves - and I mean LUUUUUUUUVS - Dropkick Murphys.

At my house, we celebrate St. Patrick's Day by drinking "green beer" (sparkling grape juice with nontoxic green food dye), eating corned beef and listening to Dropkick Murphys at full volume while watching St. Patrick's Day parades on YouTube. The parades provide an excellent lesson on which major cities in the world have the strongest legacy of Irish immigrants. 

Click here to download a Spell2Communicate lesson about St. Patrick's Day

I like to play this Dropkick Murphy's concert from 2011 in Sydney, Australia on YouTube when we celebrate. My student loves that the first part of the concert is shot from the mosh pit.

Best of luck with this month's IRL learning opportunities. With the luck of the Irish on your side, you're guaranteed mighty craic!